A principle deeply interwoven with both monarchy and aristocracy in their most flourishing state, but most deeply with the latter, is that of hereditary pre-eminence. No principle can present a deeper insult upon reason and justice. Examine the new-born son of a peer, and of a mechanic, Has nature designated in different lineaments their future fortune? Is one of them born with callous hands and an ungainly form? Can you trace in the other the early promise of genius and understanding, of virtue and honour? We have been told indeed 'that nature will break out', and that The eaglet of a valiant nest will quickly tower Up to the region of his fire;Chapter nd the tale was once believed. But mankind will not soon again be persuaded that the birthright of one lineage of human creatures is beauty and virtue, and of another, dullness, grossness and deformity.
It is difficult accurately to decide how much of the characters of men is produced by causes that operated upon them in the period preceding their birth, and how much is the moral effect of education, in its extensive sense. Children certainly bring into the world with them a part of the character of their parents; nay, it is probable that the human race is meliorated, somewhat in the same way as the races of brutes, and that every generation, in a civilized state, is further removed, in its physical structure, from the savage and uncultivated man.
But these causes operate too uncertainly to afford any just basis of hereditary distinction. If a child resembles his father in many particulars, there are particulars, perhaps more numerous and important, in which he differs from him. The son of a poet is not a poet, the son of an orator an orator, nor the son of a good man a saint; and yet, in this case, a whole volume of moral causes is often brought to co-operate with the physical.
This has been aptly illustrated, by a proposition, humorously suggested,Chapter or rendering the office of poet laureat hereditary. But, if the qualities and dispositions of the father were found descendible in the son, in a much greater degree than we have any reason to suppose, the character must be expected to wear out in a few generations, either by the mixture of breeds, or by, what there is great reason to suppose is still more pernicious, the want of mixture. The title made hereditary will then remain a brand upon the degenerate successor. It is not satire, but a simple statement of fact, when we observe that it is not easy to find a set of men in society sunk more below the ordinary standard of man in his constituent characteristics than the body of the English, or any other, peerage.
Let us proceed to enquire into the efficacy of high birth and nobility, considered as a moral cause.
The persuasion of its excellence in this respect is an opinion probably as old as the institution of nobility itself. The etymology of the word expressing this particular form of government may perhaps be considered as having a reference to this idea. It is called aristocracy, or the government of the best [apisoi] . In the writings of Cicero, and the speeches of the Roman senate, this order of men is styled the 'optimates', the 'virtuous', the 'liberal', and the 'honest'. It is asserted, and with some degree of justice, 'that the multitude is an unruly beast, with no fixed sentiments of honour or principle, guided by sordid venality, or not less sordid appetite, envious, tyrannical, inconstant and unjust'. Hence they deduced as a consequence 'the necessity of maintaining an order of men of liberal education and elevated sentiments, who should either engross the government of the humbler and more numerous class incapable of governing themselves, or at least should be placed as a rigid guard upon their excesses, with powers adequate to their correction and restraint'. The greater part of these reasonings will fall under our examination when we consider the disadvantages of democracy.
So much as relates to the excellence of aristocracy it is necessary at present to discuss.